


sing the streets a serenade

by eat_crow



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Drabble, M/M, some romeo and juliet bullshit idk i'm gay, talking to your forbidden crush from their window
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:59:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26654794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eat_crow/pseuds/eat_crow
Summary: Arthur is back from university. Merlin catches his attention the only way he knows how.“Merlin? You dipshit, what the fuck did you break my window for?” Merlin scratches the back of his head. He lifts an arm and lets it fall back to his side.“I thought it would be romantic.”
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 190





	sing the streets a serenade

**Author's Note:**

> me: please, let me update my wips  
> my brain, on a mechanical bull of drabble ideas: die mad about it
> 
> title is taken from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4-AIzKkQMY)

_A lovestruck Romeo sang the streets a serenade  
_ _Laying everybody low with a love song that he made_  
 _Finds a streetlight, steps out of the shade  
_ _Says something like, "You and me, babe, how about it?"_

Merlin whistles as he walks down the dark suburban streets. The concrete is wet and glittery under the ornate street lights. The houses are all grand, brick and mortar two stories, with big wrap around porches and ivy crawling up the sides. He reaches 1485 and stops. He could go down the driveway, but Uther would catch him on the cameras. He vaults over the three foot concrete wall that lifts the lawn up from the sidewalk and runs across the plush, perfectly trimmed grass to the wall of shrubbery that counted as a privacy fence.

He sneaks around to the side yard. There’s a window a good eight feet over his head, and no way to get to it. There are, however, river stones poured along the shrubbery to smother the weeds. Merlin picks up a pebble sized stone and tosses it in his hand to get a feel of the weight. He takes a step back, draws back his arm, and chucks it at the window. It _ping_ s off. A moment passes with no movement inside. The crickets sing in the silence. Merlin picks up another rock, a little bigger than the last, and throws it.

The window shatters.

Both of Merlin’s hands fly to his mouth in alarm and he stares at the jagged hole with wide eyes.

There’s swearing and shuffling from inside.

The window opens, and Arthur Pendragon sticks his head out. His hair is ruffled and his henley is inside out, like he just put it on. He’s wearing the big clunky glasses he has to wear when he doesn’t have his contacts in.

“ _What the fuck?_ ” He hisses at the ground. “Who did that!?” Merlin steps forward and the motion light flicks on.

“Merlin,” he whispers back, trying to smile but ending up with a grimace. Arthur gapes at him.

“Merlin? You dipshit, what the fuck did you break my window for?” Merlin scratches the back of his head. He lifts an arm and lets it fall back to his side.

“I thought it would be romantic.” Arthur rubs his eye and his glasses go askew.

“You have to go,” he says. He looks behind him, back into the house. “My dad is going to skin you alive if he catches you here.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you came back?” Merlin asks, ignoring him. Arthur runs his tongue over his teeth. He leans against the window pane on his elbows.

“You didn’t tell me either,” he says.

“I never left.” At Arthur’s pause, he continues, “I work with Gaius, down at the bar.”

“What about-- I thought… you were getting your degree.”

“Couldn’t afford it,” he says. It didn’t help that he spent half his time at school smoking in the bathroom and skipping class, and all his grades were shit, and he kept getting suspended for picking fights. The only scholarship he would have gotten was the ‘delinquent idiot’ scholarship. He wasn’t like Arthur, with his 4.2 GPA and football and trust fund. “Doesn’t matter anyway, I’m not smart enough for college.”

“Don’t say that,” Arthur says, so serious it makes Merlin step backward. “You’re an idiot, but you’re not stupid.”

Merlin stuffs his hands into his jacket pockets, his shoulders rising up to his ears. He kicks the toe of his boot into the grass and takes out a chunk of it. He frowns up at the window.

“You stopped calling.”

“I’ve been busy. College is harder than highschool.” He leans a little further forward. “A phone works both ways, you know.” As if Arthur _answered_ when he called.

“You…” He clears his throat and looks up at Arthur. “Did you mean it?” 

Arthur presses his lips together. He worries his mother’s ring with his thumb, spinning the metal around his index finger over and over, remembering the months previous when Arthur dragged Merlin away from their graduation ceremony and took handfuls of his robes as he pushed him up against the back of the gymnasium. He'd held him there, stubborn and unmoving, until Merlin snapped at him and kicked him in the shin.

The words came out in a rush of nerves as Arthur told him he was in love with him, might’ve been in love with him since they met, that he couldn’t leave without telling him that Merlin wasn't just his best friend, he was his everything, or it would eat him alive for the rest of his life. His face was flushed up to the ears, angry despite the tenderness of his words. He ran off before Merlin ever got to say whether or not those feelings were returned.

Arthur nods.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Do you still mean it?”

A pause, even longer than the one before.

“Yeah.” 

Merlin inhales through his nose and steels himself.

“Do you wanna get a drink some time?”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading this far!! i hope you liked it. fun fact, i chose 1485 as the address bc that's the year le morte d'arthur was published.
> 
> catch me on tumblr @ [sterlingdylan](http://sterlingdylan.tumblr.com/)


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